Things—A Spectrum Of Photography, 1850-2001

Photography was described by its British inventor, Henry Talbot, as 'the Pencil of Nature'. The medium used the laws of chemistry and physics to create superbly detailed descriptions of the material world that surpassed all earlier graphic media. Objects were photography's earliest subject. Things, published in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, draws from the photographs in the museum's collection, which were made by artists, scientists, reporters, advertising and editorial photographers, from the pioneers to the postmoderns. Things includes the work of ninety photographers from Talbot and Julia Margaret Cameron to Edward Weston, Cartier-Bresson, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus and that of a new generation on the cutting edge of recent technology. A tiny whirlygig beetle is reproduced on a gigantic scale from an image using photography, the electron-microscope, digital software and the most advanced inkjet printing. Things is a survey of how we view the physical world, and within the structure of the book is contained the history of photography itself.